As to wait time, that can vary. We have a smaller editing team for Crosswords and we each cover multiple categories, so depending on what happens in real life we can be spread a bit thin. We always get to them though

Yes, I understand that quizzes should (by right) come first and that you folks have way too many things to do! I'm quite a patient person generally, it's just that I thought I messed up somehow. Thanks for checking and thanks for the update : )))

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Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense- Gertrude Stein

I'm in no hurry, no worries. But Yikes, feel better soon. I missed Christmas entirely due to flu. And our week out of country the following week wasn't much fun either as we were both still sick. Get lots of sleep!!

I have one more question, more or less related to wait time. If you have already submitted a puzzle - and then decide to alter a clue (it's not an "error", more of a "tweak"), does that drop your puzzle to the bottom of the list in the same way as it does for quizzes?

Sorry if this has been asked before. Is there a FAQ or Forum link I should be reading instead of bothering folks here in this thread?

Edited by Jakeroo (Wed Jan 22 201406:18 PM)

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Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense- Gertrude Stein

I also submitted my first crossword about 10 days ago Jakeroo and was slightly concerned after a few days that it may have disappeared into 'cyberspace' as it hadn't appeared on the FT boards. I have to admit that patience is not my strongest virtue so I forwarded a message directly to spanishliz who kindly advised me that it had arrived safely and was quietly waiting in line.

I agree that all of the Editors do a brilliant job keeping the FT wheels in motion, and my message was in no way intended to be critical.

Whilst I fully appreciate that quizzes are a more popular attraction for the majority of members, my personal preference has always been directed towards crosswords. With this in mind I am a little disappointed that whilst as many as eight new quizzes are published on a daily basis, crosswords are appearing at a rate of about one a week.

Again I wish to emphasise there is absolutely no intended criticism of Editors in my post, just a personal wish that crosswords were afforded higher priority.

Sorry to hear you've been suffering with the dreaded flu Silvermoonsong!

I'm working my way through the list, slowly. If you see several days between puzzles going online, please don't think we aren't editing. I can edit several puzzles in one sitting, and sometimes send all of them back for changes. It may take a few rounds of editing before a puzzle goes online (especially when it's a new author). You just never know what's going on behind the scenes.

We have a few long term puzzle authors who have been through the wringer and usually get theirs online in one go. My goal, when editing, is to help someone become a better puzzle author so they can spend less time editing and more time creating. It's very normal for a first puzzle (or second, or even your third) to go through several rounds of editing.

I usually prefer answering questions in the open like this, so others can see the answers. You *know* someone else will come along with the same questions somewhere down the line. However, if you have a question and prefer asking privately, you can always shoot me a PM.

I just wanted to mention, there are 3 regular crossword editors, with Kyle jumping in to assist with Video Games if necessary. When 2 of us are down with the flu, you can imagine how quickly the gears stop turning!

Moonraker: I love crosswords too (have been doing them for over 50 years now). But I'm not disappointed at all with anything. I'm only asking questions because I don't know what the heck I'm doing and don't want to make the same mistakes more than twice lol

SilverMoonsong: Yes I can imagine! And thanks to you and SpanishLiz for all your help/info : )))

p.s. I "might" have to write a video game puzzle just to pester Kyle instead of you two lol.

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Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense- Gertrude Stein

Moonraker: The reason it appears that several new quizzes go on daily but it seems like it's a crossword a week is because there aren't that many people who make crosswords. While almost anybody can create quizzes, there are only a few people who can create crosswords. Also just because someone can create crosswords doesn't mean they will. Therefore, there are few crosswords to edit and thus fewer crosswords to place on-line.Take the Religion category. Only one crossword written in 2012 and only one in 2013. Quiz-wise, there's 357. It makes sense why crosswords are placed on-line what appears to be rarely.

It's true that not everyone can create crosswords, but it's more than 'a few'. The second part of thought, that not everyone who CAN create crosswords will, is more accurate I think. It takes a lot more work and is more frustrating than quiz writing (to me anyway - obviously there are people who prefer crossword creation to quiz writing).

What SilverMoonSong said about not knowing what's going on in the background is definitely true too. You see what goes online but you have no idea what is being edited and NOT going online. I don't pay much attention to the crossword queues since I don't edit crosswords, but there's usually at least one submitted on any given day (not in all categories, of course). So a crossword COULD get posted every day when the crossword editors are present - if the puzzles didn't need a couple rounds of editing. It's a whole different animal than quizzes, so the two really shouldn't be compared.

Crosswords can be more tiring to edit than quizzes, too, as one has to check structure as well as content. I've just spent about half an hour editing one (which has gone back for minor corrections) and my eyes are about falling out of my head They need a wee break before I move on to the next one.

I hope I'm not being unreasonable in asking if the drive to compose numerous quizzes during the month of February, as put forward recently by Kyleisalive who said "The whole point is to work together to get over 120 quizzes online for the event in February", is having an adverse affect on the crossword section where no new puzzles have been put on line for more than a week.

I forwarded a new puzzle myself on 25 January for which there has been no feedback as yet. I do fully appreciate that Editors are all doing their best to ensure quality submissions on a voluntary basis, and have lives to lead outside of FT, but did wonder if quizzes are now taking on even greater importance at the expense of crosswords?

A wait from January 25th to February 5th is not that long a wait for crosswords. That's less than half the wait my first crossword had, and that was nowhere near Pot Luck month. You mentioned above that you last crossword (not during February), had taken 10 days to be seen, so I don't really see the connection between your wait time and the Pot Luck.

Also, like some of the editors said above, there's a lot that goes on behind crossword-making that you don't see. Just because crosswords aren't going online doesn't mean that crosswords aren't being edited. Placing-online of crosswords in that section seems to be going about average speed as far as I can tell.

As for waiting to be seen by an editor...there are often quizzes that wait in queues longer than your crossword wait time. I've had quizzes that have taken near 10 days to be seen by an editor. Good thing they didn't require corrections or the wait to get them online would have been even longer (the same can't always be said for crosswords).

To a certain extent I guess it's a question of where one's interest lies kaddarsgirl. My passion has been in the world of crosswords for many years now, and whilst I have submitted a number of quizzes that have been accepted with little or no corrections necessary, I was more pleased to find that I was recently deemed eligible to submit crosswords. Personally, I find them far easier to compile than quizzes.

I was pleased to receive a favourable reply from SilverMoonsong concerning my first crossword, and I have now compiled others which are awaiting an available slot which will only appear when my second puzzle is cleared.

If you look through the other crosswords, you'll notice long gaps between when one crossword was put on and when the next was put on.I also doubt it has to do with Pot Luck (I don't think last year's affected the crosswords). I think Kyle is the only crossword editor to regularly create quizzes so it has nothing to do with Pot Luck (nor would it have anything to do with The Great Quiz Race).

I am a crossword editor (and while I don't create as many quizzes as kyle I have over 300 online!) but I don't edit in Geography.Like quizzes, crossword categories are edited by specific editors. Unlike quizzes, there is only one editor per category - actually one crossword editor covers several categories (I myself cover 5 crossword categories as well as edit in quizzes).The reason there are so few crossword editors is because there is not nearly the volume of crosswords as there is for quizzes. If I were to edit in only Movies, for example, I probably wouldn't have had a crossword to work on for about six months and I would soon forget to look for them and lose interest. But then I might have a real run of Movies' crosswords and have several in the queue at the same time. It's impossible to predict what will happen.

However having said that, because there is only one editor who works on Geography puzzles, for example, if there is something going on in her life, like computer trouble, an illness or a major deadline at work, then then the process is going to be slowed down. If we go on vacation, we ask for coverage from someone else but if it's just a weekend away, for example, that might not happen.

Crosswords are also quite complicated to edit and can put a tremendous strain on your eyes, as has been discussed above in this thread.

To a certain extent I guess it's a question of where one's interest lies kaddarsgirl. My passion has been in the world of crosswords for many years now, and whilst I have submitted a number of quizzes that have been accepted with little or no corrections necessary, I was more pleased to find that I was recently deemed eligible to submit crosswords. Personally, I find them far easier to compile than quizzes

Oh, moonraker2, I wasn't making a comment on your skills as a crossword creator, just making a general statement about why there's such a gap between when crosswords go online. It just requires a little more patience to wait in crossword queues, and you're not the only one that gets jittery when puzzles/quizzes aren't seen within a day or two. It happens to most of us (including me sometimes)!

Personally I find it's a lot easier for me to change the wording in a quiz than it is to find words to fit (or to change words that don't fit) in a crossword. If I had more patience for crossword creation, I'd have more than one online right now. Many kudos to you for being able to so easily do what others find difficult!

I don't think Pot Luck has much to do with it. SilverMoonSong does, I think, a large share of the crossword editing, and she does not edit quizzes. So increased quiz volume would make no difference to her.

The Pot Luck runs independently from the crosswords. While it's great to see interest in the crossword section of the site, I tend to keep it on the backburner since it's opened up to a much smaller pool of authors.

I only edit crosswords for VG, but based on my experience with them, they range in difficulty (editing-wise) from rough to frustrating. A well-made crossword still takes a good chunk of time to fine-tooth through to avoid errors in structure and clues. A crossword with a single spelling error or a single dangling issue can force an entire rewrite depending on the extent of the damages, so one crossword can take more than one or two rounds of corrections before I can even mention specific clues deeper into the puzzle (because changing one clue can change all of the subsequent numbering and make a correction notice impossible to follow).

Just a bit of insight into the world. :pHopefully the wait doesn't last too much longer for you.